Thursday, April 02, 2020

Busy Day

Today, Covid19 hits home. Our brother in law, John, is in the hospital. Mary is isolated and scared. John is in an isolation room and there are no phones.  They usually have care-givers and a social worker in their home. All of these "helpers"  are also in isolation due to John's testing.  This is truly an overwhelming situation for Mary. She's worried for John and without all those who make their lives work. They are in the state of CA and they are not testing Mary or the care-givers....they simply told them all to isolate. We appreciate your prayers on their behalf. Prayers for health, for John's body to fight the virus, for peace, for understanding and comprehension for Mary as she communicates with the doctors. She was happy to hear Michael will call the hospital's social worker tomorrow and try to find out a bit more info for her.

The photos today are weighted heavily towards Stacia and I. Hmm.....

Nolan worked.

Alex schooled.

Krista drilled (USAF Reserves) - at home.

Dad (G Dog, GG, Grandpa) read.

Michael gave Stacia a piano lesson and worked on sermon prep.

Stacia and I grabbed a picnic breakfast and found a spot beside the Matanuska River for our Bible study. When we arrived we could see a mountain...but the fog rolled in thick, and the snow began...it was incredibly beautiful and peaceful.

Today we discussed, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God." It was a good discussion. I covered these passages a couple of weeks ago with our online study group. We were studying them just as the first case of the virus hit in Alaska. Amazing timing....We spent a lot of time talking about the peace of Christ, this gift Jesus left with believers...inner peace, relational peace and situational peace.




We weren't quite ready to go home so we drove up to Lazy Mountain Trail...we did not come in contact with ANYONE who does not live in our home. Our governor encourages us to get out - in fact the parking fees at our trailheads have been waived during lock down.
That would be Lazy Mountain Trail 
 It was ICY and we both ended up putting $1 in the fall jar when we got home.  

We got home to a family focused on reading, drilling and schooling. I found a couple of YouTube videos on how to make a no sew "face covering." Here and this one uses a filter.  I heard one expert say the general public are not to have "masks," but may benefit from face coverings. I need to find some thinner material I think - but it worked....and it's easy to launder...and grab another as needed.

After my little experiment, I worked out - a lot. I spent time on the tread mill and time on the elliptical...a total of 112 minutes....

I threw together a meal with pantry items - a quarantine meal - which turned out yummy. We served it over pasta, but it could have been served over rice, or a sandwich or  pot pie filling. I threw 3 pints of canned chicken and their juices into the crock pot (recipe said to use 1-2 lbs of chicken breast), I topped it with 2 blocks of cream cheese, and ranch dressing mix. I turned it on high for 4 hours. Before serving I adjusted seasoning - herbs, garlic and adobo....and added some mixed vegetables.

While it was cooking, Stacia asked if I wanted to go for a walk with her. We headed down to the mailbox and back (1.33 miles). Stacia asked if I wanted to go further - I knew she wanted to. We did a loop around our block....run keeper says it is .78 miles. That added another 40 minutes of movement to the day - 2.11 miles.
Getting the mail.
One fun thing we are noting about lock down is that there are more people out walking in the afternoon/evening. We have been trying to make neighbor contact for over 2 years and people seemed to run from us. Now, folks wave, stop and talk (from the other side of the road) and always laugh and call a greeting. I like this trend.

We watched Cory and Arielle's April Fool's joke on Benny up on the big screen so Dad could enjoy it. At the end he says, "I wanna go GG." Priceless.

We watched a few funny clips and the kids and GG headed to bed.

I prayed with a dear friend on the phone. I helped Michael a bit with this set up....our own recording studio. He's working on filming a video clip for Sunday.  Hmmm....getting that sign straight is on "the list."

I'm going to call it a day.

Pandemic facts....taken from the Alaska Coronavirus Site. 
There are 245,559 confirmed cases in America. 6,057 deaths. We seem to have jumped to a spot where there are 1,000 deaths a day. Alaska has 8 new cases today; a total of 147 cases; 13 are in the hospital and 3 have died. Honestly, Alaska is rocking social distancing.  We won't know for sure for a couple of weeks, but it looks like we may be "flattening the curve."

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